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As I have mentioned here on my blog before, I was incredibly lucky last year to receive a kindness package from the one and only Jennifer McGuire. I have taken one of her foiled sentiment cards today and added some colour over the top.

I used the Hero Arts Large Lotus Pattern stencil with some Mermaid Lagoon distress ink. I didn't use the whole stencil - I used the largest lotus in the top left corner of the card, and then rotated the stencil to put the same pattern in the bottom right. A few enamel dots were the finishing touch.

It is so difficult to photograph foiling, but you can see in this photo that the foiling is a gorgeous pool/turquoise colour - so beautiful! I am so grateful to Jennifer for sharing her talent and her love for papercrafting, and for her never ending encouragement of other crafters. Jennifer, you are the best!

There's a hop of a different kind happening today - not a blog hop, but an Instagram hop, to celebrate an Instagram milestone for Jessica Frost-Ballas - 2000 followers! Jessica asked me to join in, and of course I said yes! Huge congrats to Jessica, and a big thank you to her for asking me to be a part of the hop :)

This looks watercoloured by hand, but it isn't! It is a cling mount stamp set from Rubbernecker Stamps, called "Flowers in the Breeze", and it was a Kris Kringle gift from a Fusion challenge team mate, Shannon Jaramillo - thanks, Shannon!
I used a combination of Stampin' Up inks and Tombow markers for the stamping. I did add a little bit of water to soften a couple of the flowers and leaves. The sentiment is from Simon Says Stamp "Big Scripty Greetings", stamped in Versafine Onyx Black and then clear embossed. I used a Hero Arts "Envelope Pattern" background stamp stamped in Soft Pool Shadow Ink on the pool background.

The hopping crafters were given this colour palette to play with:

I hope you will all hop along - you can go and visit Instagram to do so.

My username is emellell73, and Jessica's is JessicaAFrost. Come and hop along!

Jessica's blog post is HERE - she has a bunch of prizes to give away to people who comment on blog posts and Instagram posts in the hop - check out her blog for more details of the giveaway ;)

I'm here today to share three cards I made using my all time favourite Hero
Arts background stamp, along with a new favourite sentiment stamp set
from Simon Says Stamp.

This
month, our challenge theme at A Blog Named Hero is A bit of Sparkle. I've added some sparkle
with some Pretty Pink Posh sequins, but there is also some shimmer on
the patterned panel - a liberal dose of Perfect Pearls mist over the
watercoloured cardstock gives some elegant shine.

I
made the coloured panel by white heat embossing the "flower dot
pattern" background stamp from Hero Arts onto some Canson watercolour
cardstock (unfortunately, that stamp is discontinued, but there are lots
of other Hero Arts background stamps that would work well). I then
added some dark pink and some royal blue Gansei Tambi watercolour and
let it blend a bit, before spraying the entire panel with Perfect Pearls
mist. I then cut the piece into three using a couple of Lawn Fawn
dies, and added them to some white cardstock from Simon Says Stamp. I
stamped the sentiments (also from Simon Says Stamp) using my MISTI, to
make sure they were stamped straight, and to allow me to stamp multiple
times to get a nice crisp black sentiment.

I love being able to make multiple cards at once - making three did not take much more time than making just one!

Please
join in with our month long challenge at A Blog Named Hero, "A bit of Sparkle". You will
find the Inlinkz in the first post of this month HERE.

After trying some no-line colouring yesterday, I thought I would try again with different cardstock. It was a fair bit more difficult to get a good blend with the Copics on this cardstock (white Knight) than with the cardstock I used yesterday (Stampin' Up heavy weight Whisper White). But I'm still happy with the result:

I had to use some of these very cute Doodlebug heart shaped sprinkles - they were a gift from my friend and A Blog Named Hero Facebook team mate, Niki Garcia - thanks so much, Niki!

I find the technique of no-line colouring intimidating. There, I said it. But I know I'll get nowhere if I don't practice.

Quite honestly, I was pretty pleased with how this little elephant turned out. I love how soft the image is with no lines! (I originally thought that this photo was out of focus - lucky the sentiment is nice and crisp!)

I just got a delivery this morning of some heavier weight Whisper White cardstock from Stampin' Up (thanks heaps, Sue!) But, seriously, why did it take them so long?
Today, I decided to have a go at the sketch over at CAS(E) this Sketch - using a background stamp would have been fun, but I wanted to use the "Birthday Blooms" set from Stampin' Up that I just got.

I stamped in Hero Arts Wet Cement shadow ink, and then coloured using Copic markers. Now, before you say that Shadow Inks are not Copic friendly - I know! I didn't want the image lines to be crisp, I wanted them to be soft and not harsh at all, so I went with a pale ink that would bleed a little bit with Copics. I like the soft feel it gives.

A few week ago, I painted some watercolour cardstock with a rainbow of Distress Inks. Today, I was completely lacking any cardmaking mojo, so I pulled out one of these pieces, and made a couple of cards:

I made this one first - I die cut one of the stitched cloud border dies from Lawn Fawn onto the watercoloured piece, as well as on white cardstock. I adhered them together to the card front, and added a sentiment from Hero Arts "messages with flourish", and a few sequins from Pretty Pink Posh.

For the second card, I added a vellum window on the bottom half of the card, with the rainbow adhered to the inside of the card. The sentiment is from Avery Elle "so happy".